Category: History

Nazis are becoming all the rage lately. From the left calling anybody to the right of Karl Marx “Nazi” or “fascist” to a group of people commonly referred to as the “alt-reich” or alt-retards, you see and hear it all over the place. President Trump, since the early days of his campaign, has been called “literally Hitler”.

In light of that, I’ve been doing my own research into the subject. I’ve read Mein Kampf (Ford translation) and several other books trying to get a handle on what actually happened so I don’t become one of these historically illiterate idiots running around.

Back in June, Castalia House released Martin Van Creveld’s latest book, Hitler In Hell. I got a free copy as a member of their book club (joining is as easy as submitting your email address.) It took me a while to read it since I had an ePub on my phone. I finally finished.

As I read the book, I kept wondering “why would an Israeli Jew write a book that seems to come out favorable to the Fuhrer?” The answer is at the back. Van Creveld has studied the subject his entire life. He had family that both survived and perished during the events of WWII and the concentration camps (commonly called “The Holocaust.”) He has read many of the biographies and done plenty of archival research, and as a military historian, has done plenty of his own reading and writing on German military tactics in both wars.

Van Creveld has always thought about writing a biography on the man but didn’t know what to add that others hadn’t already covered. Then it hit him, to write the book autobiographical. So although this book is fiction, it is written as if in Hitler’s own words and voice.

The premise of the book is: Hitler is in Hell. He’s totally conscious of the events since he ate a bullet in his bunker (he has an Internet connection), and is writing both his side of the story and responding to his critics.

I enjoyed the book and learned a lot in the process. In some ways, it agrees with “alternative historians” such is Mike King. In a few other ways, it differs. Some claim Hitler let the British escape at Dunkirk. Van Creveld’s Hitler says it was flawed intelligence and ground that prevented his army from moving quickly enough.

All in all, Hitler in Hell is a great read and a valuable addition to this historical discussion. The story of Hitler is not one as simple as “evil man!” or “demon possessed”. He was a real man with real motivations at a real point in history with real influences, both positive and negative. He was a combat soldier, serving at the front for almost four years, wounded in action twice, then watched helplessly as his nation was humiliated and raped with the Treaty of Versailles. He was also an intelligent man and a scholar, who read a lot, often a book a day. What would you do?

Tingly-legged windbag Chris Matthews got caught in a pay-to-play scandal involving his wife’s campaign and his TV show. The blond blowhard has been soliciting donations for his wife’s congressional campaign in exchange for appearing on his show, enabling the donors to be seen by Hardball’s dozens of viewers. MSNBC should can the tiresome phony right away.

Not even savvy enough to time the donations in a less obvious way, some were made within a few days of the appearances. Matthews’ guests had given Kathleen Matthews’ campaign nearly $80,000 as of December 31, 2015.

Go figure. (This was written as a draft some time ago, and wasn’t published until now).

I’ve had the show “Myth Hunters” bookmarked on Netflix for quite a while. I saw that the first season is going away this month, so I have to watch it this weekend.

It has some interesting shows. The episode on “King Solomon’s Mines” was fascinating to me, as was Hitler and the Spear of Destiny.

The first episode on Noah’s Ark kind of pissed me off. It was produced recently enough that they could have done better research.

For one thing, not all Creationists are literal 6000 year “Young Earth” Creationists. It’s amazing to me how many people don’t know that. Or they do know that, but are hoping a fallacious appeal to ridicule is good enough for their audience.

For another, the episode focused exclusively on Mt. Ararat in Turkey. The Bible says the ark came to rest “Upon the mountains of Ararat.” Mt. Ararat in Turkey was named by Marco Polo, a fact mentioned then discarded in the show.

To find the real mountains of Ararat, one must focus on a land known as Ararat AT THE TIME GENESIS WAS WRITTEN, not from a 12th century explorer.

Josephus says the ark came to rest on a certain mountain in Armenia. Bob Cornuke of BASE Institute thinks Ararat was in Iran, and led an expedition there some years back.

Of course, finding the ark assumes it was left intact. I personally think it was disassembled for building material and/or firewood, of which no proof is available, but it makes sense.

Or it simply rotted away over the years. It was made of wood, after all. The Titanic has only been at the bottom of the ocean for 104 years, and it is rotting away. I doubt there will be anything left of it in 5000 years.

It would be cool as hell for somebody to find Noah’s Ark, but I don’t think it’s likely to happen.

Quintus Curtius analyzes Leo. For his great mind, he lacked actual expertise in the subjects he wrote in his notebooks, and he did not execute well. He completed only 15 paintings in his life, and never wrote a book. His notebooks (I have them in Kindle format) have not inspired much actual engineering.